The Sentimental Sociopath
by BlueStarMusicGeek
Summary: Sherlock doesn't get sentimental. He doesn't suffer from emotions: he's been reliably informed that he doesn't have a heart, and for good reason. Except… we all know that isn't quite true; especially when it comes to John. (No slash.)


**Author's Note:** Why hello there, lovely people of the Sherlock fandom. I wasn't planning on posting any more stories for _Sherlock_ but I got such a positive response from _Texts From John_ that I couldn't resist. This is just something that I've been working on for a while now, and while I'd originally intended for it to be a one-shot the idea got away from me a little bit and there will be a second part to this some time soon, hopefully. There definitely _is_ one, I just don't know when it'll be finished, and it'll probably be shorter, I don't know yet.

This has now taken the form of a belated birthday present to myself, so I hope you enjoy it. Feedback is greatly appreciated (that is, it makes me grin ridiculously much).

Oh, and this is set post-return, though there won't be any detail of that seeing as we're still waiting for the third series and that won't be a main focus point of the story. All mistakes are mine. Warnings for non-graphical mentions of violence and a few cuss words. Enjoy!

* * *

It was, quite possibly, the best case that Sherlock had been given in _at least_ a couple of months, if not the best part of a year. A murderer who actually seemed to _know_ what he was doing and acted with the precision of an assassin, but with no evidence to suggest a serial killer. It was brilliant, in short. It was Christmas.

The police were out of their depth –not that this came as any sort of surprise, and Sherlock was in his element: dancing around a body with a kind of excitement that was probably entirely inappropriate considering the nature of the situation, but not really caring. He _finally_ had an interesting murder to solve.

Of course, there was always John to point out when Sherlock needed to be more sensitive.

"Could you at least pretend to care that a woman's lying dead?" John commented, leaning against the wall with his arms folded in a casual stance that had Anderson glaring and screeching about contaminated evidence.

What evidence, exactly, did he intend to get from the wall?

John simply ignored him.

Sherlock hummed in questioning, finally tearing his eyes away to turn to John, not appearing to have been listening yet apparently knowing exactly what his flatmate had said. "We've been over this, John, caring isn't an advantage."

"Well stop quoting Mycroft and at least calm down a bit, then?" John offered.

Sherlock scowled at the mention of his brother but complied never the less, much to Greg's surprise.

"You got any ideas yet?" The Detective Inspector enquired. In return he got a look that clearly said _'of course I have ideas, I'm Sherlock Holmes, bitch'_. (Though probably not that last part)

"She knew the murderer, there's no sign of any kind of forced entry so she let him in. Trusted him, she turned her back on him and got a hit straight to the back of her head. Planned beforehand, and probably knocked her unconscious immediately, seeing as there are no signs of a struggle and her career as a fitness instructor would have made her entirely capable of fighting back. He knew what he was doing."

"Wait, he?"

"Obvious. There are no signs of her being dragged but there's a slight scuff mark just away from the doorway that coincides with the scrape to her knee, as if someone had fallen. The rest of the place is immaculate, mark must be recent. So she was moved into the centre of the room after she was killed. Why would she be moved? She was already dead and if the body was being left then why would it matter where she was placed?"

Lestrade just gaped, not even sure he was following what was being said. John, on the other hand…

"He… needed to get past her?"

"Why?" Sherlock pushed. "He'd already killed her; surely he'd already got what he wanted? Why not just leave?"

John hesitated, eyes scanning over the scene. Sherlock waited. "Because killing her was only part of what he came for. Killing her was deliberate but it wasn't done to cause pain. She'd have been unable to feel anything from the first blow. So… killed for convenience," John concluded. "She was involved in something that wasn't her fault. Possibly in the wrong place at the wrong time,"

Sherlock grinned. "Mostly correct, but being in the wrong place at the wrong time wouldn't account for why she trusted the murderer. Clearly she hadn't gotten involved purposefully though. She was a valued member of the community, certificates on the wall say she's done charity work and photos throughout the house show that she had close friends and family –she would never have gotten in with the wrong crowd. If it was money she needed she had plenty of options."

"Used, then," John corrected.

"Exactly: she was given information of some kind for safe keeping: no one would ever have suspected her. Wouldn't have known about it, but accidently found out more than she was supposed to, that's why it was decided that she had to die. Body was moved to try and distract from the murderer moving further into her house.

"He was known and trusted by her, but he'd gained that bond intentionally and there was no sentiment involved on his part. Could be an ex-lover, but then she could be hesitant about letting him into her house; they wouldn't necessarily have parted on the best of terms, or she'd want to move on, people are touchy about that sort of thing. Most likely a newer acquaintance, but she harboured feelings towards him -evident by the way she's dressed, specifically wanted to impress him and knew he was coming- hence why she kept information in the first place, almost certainly disguised inside some sort of gift.

"The murderer used her feelings in his favour but something happened to change his plans and he killed her to ensure that the information wouldn't be leaked. He had to be careful about it, so he's probably got himself into some sort of dangerous situation because of the information that he had."

"Then, why are you so excited?" Greg asked slowly once he was sure that Sherlock had stopped talking, visibly confused. "If you can deduce all of that in less than thirty seconds, then what's so difficult about the case? There has to be something or you wouldn't be so interested."

"He was smart," Sherlock continued. "He planned the murder with precision and would have been in and out of the house in less than two minutes, leaving no DNA –so you really should tell Anderson to go home and annoy someone else- and the one person who would have been able to reveal his identity is now lying dead. Clearly he has a background in crime, and the fact that he's willing to kill just to protect his identity, purposely attracting police attention, shows that he's confident that he won't be caught."

"I'm not following." Lestrade admitted. "You know the motive; you know who he must have been-"

Sherlock sighed, undoubtedly thinking up some sort of insult about Greg's intelligence. Actually, make that _insults,_ plural.

"He took the only evidence to suggest who he might have been." John inputted. "He was accustomed to crime but his confidence hints that he can't be found on police records and there'll be nothing left in this house which reveals who he really was. All we really have to go on is that he must have spoken to the victim on multiple occasions, but that could be any number of people."

"Thank you, John, at least _someone's_ paying attention." Sherlock pointedly looked at Greg before turning back to his flatmate. "I think we'll start by interviewing the mother. Given their close mother-daughter relationship it's possible that she knows something about her daughter's infatuation, at the very least where she met him."

John pushed away from the wall and gave Sherlock a fixed stare as he walked over to him. "Fine, so long as you don't yell at this one. She _has_ just lost a child, Sherlock."

"It's hardly my fault that people are irritatingly uncooperative when they're crying. It's like they don't _want_ to find the murderer."

"Do I need to remind you of what happened last time?" John countered.

Sherlock rolled his eyes. "For all you know that heart attack was completely unrelated to me-"

"I'm a doctor, Sherlock."

"-And either way, at least she was alerted of a serious health issue that required more attention than her _dog._ How was I to know that she felt so highly about an animal of limited intelligence? The bitch wasn't even related to solving the case; she was just being awkward and refusing to talk."

"You better have been referring to the dog just then. Besides, of course you knew how highly she cared for the dog: you're Sherlock Holmes."

"Of _course_ I was referring to the dog, and she clearly didn't care enough to give the animal a name that was less ridiculous than _Mrs Fluffy Huggingtons._"

They giggled, right there in the middle of the crime scene, before wandering off to go and traumatise some poor old lady as they left Detective Inspector Greg Lestrade standing clueless, wondering what, exactly, had just happened.

Not much different from usual, then.

* * *

"What's wrong with the milk?" John called from the kitchen, staring at the bottle that shiftily sat inside the fridge as though at any moment it was about to sprout legs and jump out of the window. Frankly, given the increased number and ridiculousness of Sherlock's experiments recently (some of which were never to be spoken of again) John wouldn't be all that surprised if it did.

"What? Nothing, I only just bought it."

John rolled his eyes, shutting the fridge door and walking so that he could see his flatmate, who was lounging around on the sofa, as usual, with his hands clasped under his chin in one of his trademark thinking expressions.

"That in itself is cause to be suspicious. Where's your motive?"

"I need a motive for buying milk? We ran out of it, so I bought some more. Does that not suffice as a reason?"

"Maybe for anybody else, but you never buy milk. Either you're using it for some kind of strange experiment, or you're trying to apologise for something, so what have you done?"

"Nothing," Sherlock repeated, looking irritated.

"Still guilty about dying, then," John muttered, making his way back to the kitchen to finally make himself a much needed cup of tea.

Sherlock pretended not to have heard him.

"Thanks, by the way," John said suddenly. "For the milk," He clarified.

Sherlock had already returned to his mind palace, trying to get back to solving the case and mumbling under his breath. "No, can't have been that… he was northern…"

John shook his head fondly and picked up his laptop, retreating to his bedroom so that the noise of the keys wouldn't disturb Sherlock's deductions.

* * *

It had been a long case, ridiculously so, but finally Sherlock had somehow managed to discover not only the murderer's identity but also his whereabouts, resulting in yet another chase through the streets of London, this time in the middle of the night.

-Because it just wasn't dangerous enough to willingly follow a murderer without the added hazard of limited sight and the possibility of criminals lurking in the shadows. God, John wished he had a torch… or his gun.

Preferably the gun, though.

Lestrade had been sending text after text alternating between demanding to know where they were so that he could send backup, yelling at them for running off by themselves and asking why John wasn't being more responsible, as if he was Sherlock's keeper. Sherlock and John had split up so as to cover a wider area.

John had been hurt.

It was a small error of judgement, on his part. He'd been too preoccupied in trying to defend himself from the guy's fists to notice the knife and-

Getting stabbed, he pondered, was rather like getting shot. Except that it wasn't. The wound was bigger, for one thing, and he couldn't remember ever seeing this much blood before (which really wasn't good now that he thought about it, considering his past as an army doctor), but it was all pain, in the end. The same choked gasp ripped from his body at the original impact, and it always felt like he was going to die, no matter how many times he assured himself that he wasn't.

The worst part, John supposed, was fighting through it. Trying to convince yourself to remain conscious and not think about the pain.

To be fair, he wasn't _just_ thinking about the pain. He was also thinking about Sherlock and ambulances and hospitals and knife wounds and all sorts of other medical-related things that he couldn't quite remember at the moment because the pain was starting to become overwhelming and how the hell were you supposed to put pressure on a wound which was rapidly draining all the energy out of your body?

-But mainly Sherlock.

He managed to get his phone out of his pocket with the hand which was the least covered with blood, narrowly resisting the urge to scream, and hit speed dial.

"_John?"_ For a man who religiously preferred to text, he really was quick at accepting phone calls.

"Stabbed," John panted, wincing as he realised that talking was actually quite painful at the moment. Then again, so was breathing, but John was in too much agony to check for broken ribs.

There was no response on Sherlock's side, just the sound of the dial tone, letting him know that Sherlock had disconnected the call. John could only hope that his flatmate had received the message.

John's phone fell helplessly beside him and he tried to sit up further against the wall beside him, only to slump uselessly as another sharp wave of pain overwhelmed him.

_Okay, bit not good, probably shouldn't try that again._

Oh God, what was he supposed to do again? Stab wound, stab wound… how do you treat a stab wound?

John frowned, beginning to become lightheaded and forcing himself to concentrate. _John, you're a doctor, you have to focus._ _Knife missed all major organs, not too much internal damage -pressure. Your only worry is losing too much blood. Stay conscious. Apply pressure._

_Or, wait, where was the kidney again? Maybe the blade had punctured his kidney… Or were there two? Two kidneys, that sounded –this is the anatomical structure of the human body, Watson; you can do this in your sleep!_

_Okay, okay, pressure, consciousness, you're going to be fine. It's all fine. _

_How long have I been here again? _

As far as John could remember, it was supposed to be someone _else_ applying pressure, and truthfully, now, he could see why. He was fighting not only his natural instincts in the form of the desire to give in but also the pain. The pain: this constant, never-ending torture, only intensified by his efforts to stop the bleeding.

He had to face the truth: he couldn't keep this up for much longer.

_Need Sherlock._

* * *

_John. John. John. John._

That was it. Sherlock, Mr All-That-Matters-To-Me-Is-The-Work-My-Head-Is-My-Hard-Drive-What's-It-Like-In-Your-Funny-Little-Brains-Ordinary-People-Are-So-Boring, had lost all logical thought.

All that mattered was that John's life was in danger.

Sherlock had called Lestrade to ask (i.e. _order_) him to phone for an ambulance (because under no circumstances was Sherlock going to dial 999, not even for John) in a conversation which lasted for all of five seconds, and during which Lestrade was not able to say a single word past_ Sherlock, what.._. Honestly, Sherlock had only refrained from texting the Detective Inspector instead because it seemed much more difficult to type and sprint at the same time, and he didn't have the time to waste to stop running. He didn't have time, full stop.

He had to get to John.

He should have stayed with him. He should have known better. He should have realised that there'd be a weapon. John was hurt and it was his fault. John.

_John. John. John. John._

The stream of thoughts coincided with his fast pace, blurring into one another: John-John-John-John… A continuous drone of the one single sound, the one syllable, the same four letters, but even Sherlock's thoughts sounded frantic.

He couldn't hear much further past his own breathing and his elevated heartbeat, the world rushing past him as Sherlock ignored all rational thought (not that he currently had any) and just _acted. _No time for planning, no time to even calculate a route, he just had to move and move fast.

Sherlock scaled a wall without thinking about it, stumbled into the corner of a building without even registering the feeling and almost knocked down a group of hooded teenagers, all within the space of a few seconds. The wall wasn't especially high, his arm wasn't hurting that much where he'd hit it harshly against the building and the gang was insignificant, it was just more idiocy to be surrounded in. It wasn't important. Nothing and nobody was important.

-Except John.

This was what panic felt like. Sherlock didn't know what he was doing, couldn't possibly comprehend what was going on, couldn't believe that anything could have happened to John. _His_ John, _his_ best friend…

He didn't understand, but he didn't have the time to care.

_John. John. John. John._

God, how big was London anyway? It was like whoever had built the city didn't realise that Sherlock had to get somewhere quickly and all this architectural structuring was just in the way. I mean, very clever, you can create and construct buildings which people can live in, but none of that mattered unless _John_ lived. Nothing mattered.

_John. John. John. John._

Where was he? They hadn't separated all that long ago, surely John hadn't gone too far away? Then there was the time allocated for John fighting the _bastard_ who stabbed him, because of course John fought back, and no matter what happened next the person who had hurt him was going to suffer a long and painful death, made to look like a perfect accident, because no one touches John Watson and gets away with it. When this was over, Sherlock would enjoy plotting a brilliantly crafted method of torture or killing, and to hell with the law, no one was going to stop him, either.

Why did it have to be dark? Night-time was stupid. Stars weren't beautiful, they were pointless, and maybe if the Sun didn't decide to move and there was natural light Sherlock would have more of a chance to-

No. The Earth moves around the Sun, not the other way around. Dull. Yet since John had been the one to say it Sherlock couldn't bring himself to delete it again. He never deleted anything about John. John had his own space reserved: East Wing, third floor, fifth door on the right, next to the suit of armour wearing a fez. He had an entire room in the mind palace.

Sherlock should have told him that. Should have –no… Stop thinking like he's going to die.

He's not going to die. He's going to be okay. He can't die. He can't.

_John. John. John. J-_

"_John," _Sherlock exclaimed, when he _finally_ found him, finding the doctor's body twisting in pain as he desperately tried to fight against his instinctual need to rest, to give in, to close his eyes and forget about the pain.

"Took your bloody time," John groaned out in response as the taller man dropped to his knees beside him, briefly wondering what he was supposed to do.

Sherlock felt… he didn't know how he felt, but he'd certainly never felt the same way ever before. His heart was racing, and that wasn't from the sprinting.

He noticed John's hand weakly thrown over his abdomen and winced. John wasn't weak, and nothing about him should ever be described in that way. Sherlock started to wrestle with his own coat.

"Not the coat." John muttered quietly, trying to smile.

"Shut up." Sherlock responded, brushing John's hands aside and replacing them with his own, his coat acting as a barrier. That's what people did in the movies, right? Sherlock didn't know whether they did it as a way to protect themselves from the blood or if it actually helped, but John didn't say anything about it.

Then again, talking at the moment probably wasn't the best thing for him.

In fact, the only sound that John emitted was a particularly heart wrenching yelp as Sherlock pressed sharply down on the wound, causing Sherlock's eyes to widen as he instinctively pulled back slightly.

"Sorry, I-"

"No," John insisted, guiding Sherlock back. "Need to keep pressure on it; can't afford to lose any more blood."

Sherlock stared at John's red-stained hands over his own in horror, only snapping out of the trance at the sound of the other man's voice.

"Yorkshire," He mumbled, Sherlock only just catching the word.

"What?"

"You were right: when you said he was northern." He elaborated. "Told me he was gonna get away and there was 'nowt' I could do about it." He paused. "Sorry. Almost stopped him but-"

"Don't be an idiot, John." Sherlock snapped.

"But I-"

"You were stabbed, and if you honestly were intending to attempt to apprehend him after that then you've been spending far too much time with Anderson. Do you really think that I care about any of that right now?"

(Whether he cared about it later, of course, was another matter entirely. No one could stab _John_ and just _get away._)

"I thought you didn't care about anything." John replied honestly, not breaking eye contact.

There was a brief moment of silence, before-

"Energy conservation," Sherlock responded instead, reminding John that he needed to focus on breathing and staying conscious rather than talking. He was already looking worriedly pale, his breath coming out in short, sharp bursts. Sherlock was no doctor, but he knew that things weren't looking good.

"Ambulance?" John asked, giving up on keeping his head up and tipping it back against the concrete beneath him.

"Should be here any second now, you only have to hold on a while longer."

"Don't know if I can." John admitted, shifting slightly and then hissing in pain at the action. "_Shit._"

"John." John focused his eyes on the consulting detective, each blink slow and tiring. He was rapidly deteriorating. His breathing was evening out and Sherlock knew what that meant. He couldn't allow that to happen.

"John, you can't fall asleep. I need you to listen to me; I need you to fight it."

"Mmmph," John hummed, though even as he did his eyes were drifting shut. "Fighting, soldier, got it."

"No, John, _doctor. _You're also a doctor, remember, and you know what will happen if you give in now." His voice was shaky and his tone uneven as Sherlock started to become increasingly more desperate.

"Bad." John muttered, barely coherent.

"Very bad," Sherlock agreed, not even noticing the large step backwards that his vocabulary seemed to have taken. "_John_." He repeated, louder, when he got no response.

"Hurts," He complained. "Stop shouting at me."

Sherlock sighed, or it could have been a breath of relief. "Sorry."

John regarded him suspiciously and frowned. "Two apologies in less than five minutes? You'd think someone was dying."

"Don't even joke about that."

"…Sherlock, it's not your fault."

Not _I'm okay_ or _everything's going to be fine,_ but _it's not your fault. Whatever happens, you're not to blame._

Sherlock couldn't help but notice what else that implied.

* * *

"Sherlock? Where's John?"

"Ambulance," He replied, without looking up. Then, correcting himself: "Actually, what time is it? He's probably at the hospital by now."

There was no _probably _about it, as even in his current state Sherlock had observed the hurried actions of the paramedics and calculated the estimated time for the vehicle to reach its destination, permitting time for approximate traffic and diversions. He could guess, to the second, how long it would take for John to reach the hospital.

The only problem was that he had no idea how long it had been since John had been taken away from him. …Or, to be more precise, since Sherlock had been dragged away from his side.

"Didn't you want to go with him?" Lestrade asked, blissfully unaware of the internal conflict occurring inside Sherlock's head.

His thoughts were forming more rapidly than usual, yet he still couldn't _think._

It just didn't make _sense._

"I- …I don't know."

The Detective Inspector looked at him then, really looked at him, with the same concerned expression that he seemed to be sporting far too often when it came to Sherlock. He was shivering, not that he appeared to be aware of it, and the only words that Lestrade could think of to describe him were vulnerable and –lost? It was like he didn't know what to do with himself.

At that point Greg followed the other man's gaze and finally noticed Sherlock's hands –his red stained hands: John's blood.

"Oh, _God._"

This time, Sherlock didn't refuse the orange blanket.


End file.
